Sly & the Family Stone

Music that bridged race and gender.

Nothing prepared me for the explosion of sight and sound when Sly and The Family Stone took the stage in the Woodstock film. Wearing impossibly huge glasses, mutton chop sideburns, and flowing white fringe in multiple layers from his shoulders to his waist, Sly was impossible to ignore. Then, as the bass pushes the beat, a woman’s voice implores, “Get up, dance to the music. Get on up! Dance to the funky music!”

In 1970, the term ‘funky” was new to us. So was this band. Intentionally multi-racial, mixed-gender musicians playing together in the “Family Stone.”  These were not black musicians backing up a white lead singer, and these weren’t black women singing background vocals. “The band had a concept — white and Black together, male and female both, and women not just singing but playing instruments. That was a big deal back then and it was a big deal on purpose.” Stone recalls in his autobiography: THANK YOU (FALETTINME BE MICE ELF AGIN): A Memoir, by Sly Stone with Ben Greenman.

By the time Sly met up with Woodstock, he had already established his band as a mashup of soul, psychedelia, and rock which came to be known as funk. James Brown and Sly were the originators of this new sound. But it took the mass consumption of the Woodstock documentary film to push this style into the early 70s and influence bands like Parliament-Funkadelic, Ohio Players, and Kool & the Gang. And a young Prince would also emulate the Sly style.

The medley of songs played at Woodstock: Dance to the Music / Music Lover / I Want to Take You Higher was a non-stop funkfest for the largely white audience. Those few minutes of film catapulted the band into high demand on the concert scene. They may never have been invited to play Woodstock had it not been for the release of their fourth album, Stand, just three months prior. It included the song, “Everyday People” which introduced a new catchphrase for the time, “Different strokes for different folks.” The song was a protest against prejudice in all its forms.

Unfortunately, Sly was a heavy user of drugs and it would rob him of his motivation for playing. His reputation for showing up late, not showing at all, or leaving early would very quickly kill the buzz created by his performance at Woodstock. In 1970 alone, he would miss a third of his concerts. For many of us alive during that time, it would have been impossible to imagine that Sly would be publishing his memoir at the age of 80. No one thought he would make it past 1971.

Sylvester Stewart grew up in a musical family. His brother Freddie and sister Rose played guitar and keyboards in the Family Stone. Sylvester took the name Sly Stone as a radio DJ in California. Both Sly and Freddie played guitar so he made Freddie the official guitarist for the band and Sly taught himself to play the organ.

The overwhelming success of their set at Woodstock combined with Sly’s drug use influenced their 1971 album, There’s a Riot Goin’ On. It was a clear departure from the positive messages of his previous LPs. Moody, dark, and dense, the music reflected the times. The optimism of the sixties died with the King and Kennedy assassinations and the reality of police brutality. The civil rights movement gave way to a more militant path characterized by the Black Power movement. The Black Panthers who epitomized this change demanded that Sly write songs with more militant themes. Even with this backdrop, the album became a critical and commercial success over time. The single, “Family Affair,” reached #1 on the pop singles chart. The Album has been cited by many to have influenced the birth of hip-hop. It inspired Miles Davis and Herbie Hancock to crossover into a Jazz-Funk style.

It's thought that the album title referred to a free concert in Chicago by Sly in 1970 that never began due to fans rioting. The blame was placed squarely on Sly and the Family Stone for being late to perform. This just added to the negative publicity around the band. Living in Chicago at the time, my memory of that incident was the realization that the positivity, peace, and happiness so clearly in view at Woodstock, collapsed into chaos and riots almost immediately after. The violent end of the sixties took a toll on optimism for the future. And free concerts were no longer the idyllic setting they once were.

A 2003 article on the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time for Rolling Stone commented; "Sly and the Family Stone created a musical utopia: an interracial group of men and women who blended funk, rock and positive vibes... Sly Stone ultimately discovered that his utopia had a ghetto, and he brilliantly tore the whole thing down on There's a Riot Goin' On, which does not refute the joy of his earlier music."

But the band’s notoriety for sabotaging live concerts stuck with them. After a disastrous booking at Radio City Music Hall in NYC ended with only a few fans in attendance, the band split up. After years of one-off albums, Sly showed up for the band’s induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1993, said a few words then disappeared from public view. By 2011, Sly was living in a camper van in LA. And yet, as if reincarnated, he offers us a memoir at the age of 80 in 2023.

As if that’s not enough, Questlove, who unearthed a trove of amazing footage for his “Summer of Soul” documentary (Hulu), is now working on a similar pictorial for Sly and the Family Stone. Sly was featured in that documentary of the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival, held the same summer as Woodstock. Those two events made it clear how Sly bridged the divide between Black and white audiences and attracted both to his new brand of music. And for one summer at least, his band brought us all together to dance to the music.